


snip

by t_hens



Series: bingo 2019 [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Established Relationship, F/F, Gender Roles, Hurt/Comfort, brief mentions of homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-12-01 23:43:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20937743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t_hens/pseuds/t_hens
Summary: Dan feels like she’s not being authentic because she doesn’t look ‘queer enough’ so she decides to cut her hair





	snip

**Author's Note:**

> written for the phandomficfests: bingo  
prompts used: hair, writers choice (wlw)  
thank you moody for all your help <3

Dan had been standing in front of the mirror for what felt like ages. She passed the straightner in her hand through her hair again and huffed in exasperation. No matter how long she tried, no matter what products she used, it was always frizzy and not quite straight, and she really hated it.

Turning off the straightener, she shuffled into the lounge where Phil was slumped over her still-steaming cup of coffee. There was a full cup on the coffee table, presumably waiting for Dan.

“Wha’s wrong?” Phil asked, eyes still swollen with sleep behind her glasses.

“My hair is just annoying me.”

She hummed back in response. It was the ‘I haven’t had my required amount of caffeine so I’m not really absorbing what you’re saying’ hum. Dan shook her head fondly and sat down in her corner of the couch and brought the too hot cup to her lips.

-

After a handful of minutes, Phil sat her cup down and shuffled into Dan’s spot on the couch, wrapping her long arms around Dan’s waist.

“Why is your hair being stupid? I like it.” She pinched a still slightly wavy lock in her fingers and gave it a gentle tug.

“You’re biased though.”

Phil shrugged and gave it another pull. “So? Even if I wasn’t, I would still think it’s pretty.”

Dan squirmed away and batted Phil’s fingers away. “That’s not the problem. I don’t care if it’s pretty.”

It was a testament of their love that Phil didn’t look remotely bothered by her drastic mood change. She just sat back and little and waited patiently for Dan to get her thoughts in order.

“It’s stupid,” she said after a pause of silence. “It’s just hair. I shouldn’t get so worked up about it.”

Phil threaded their fingers together and pressed her lips to the warm backside of Dan’s hand.

“It’s not stupid if it’s something you care aobut. And you can change it, you know.”

Dan didn’t respond, just burrowed into Phil’s side and took a deep breath. She did know that she could cut her hair, but it wasn’t really that simple. For as long as she could remember, her hair was just a _thing_. A stupid thing, perhaps, but still a thing. She’d spend hours straightening it, just to have it frizzy and start to curl the second there was any type of humidity. People always told her it was pretty and so ‘ladylike’ and it made Dan want to tear it from her head.

-

They shot a gaming video that afternoon, and Dan could feel herself being weird and distant, and thanked her lucky stars that Phil was able to pick up her slack with an ease that made Dan’s heart melt a bit.

She spent too much time playing with her hair, trying to find a way to wear it that made her feel comfortable, and not stifled, like she was. It didn’t seem to matter though. She was hyper fixated on the way it was too heavy and too thick and made her feel claustrophobic.

Phil didn’t comment on it, just let Dan screw around and not pay attention to what they were playing as she pulled her ponytail out for about the fifth time and tried to rearrange it on her head again.

-

When they were finished and Phil had pulled on her headphones to start editing, Dan went downstairs to lay on the sofa. She flopped herself down and scrolled through her social media feeds. Twitter and Instagram were boring, so she switched to Tumblr to see if she could find enough things she liked to make a halfway decent queue. 

After scrolling for a while, she started to feel more relaxed. Her brain wondered from subject to subject as her eyes drifted over post after post. It was easy to pass time this way that didn’t require a lot of brain power. 

Her eyes drifted over a photoset of herself and Phil, some from the gaming channel, some from insta stories and various photos and gifs. It was cute and Dan started to scroll to like the post, when her eyes caught the addition someone had written after reblogging.

‘_I just don’t see how anyone could think they are gay. like sure they are best friends, but i feel like it’s pretty obvious they are just friends. dan used to date a boy and phil talks about boys she used to date. _

_besides, they don’t even look gay? they don’t dress in rainbows and shit and they both look straight. stop reaching smh._’

There were plenty of follow up replies that Dan didn’t bother reading. She was aware that there were people who strongly believed that she and Phil were just best friends, and that they were both straight, but it felt like a slap in the face to have someone say that she couldn’t be queer because she didn’t look a certain way. What did that even mean? What you looked like had no bearings on who you were attracted to you. 

She felt herself start to spiral; pulse picking up and chest becoming tight and uncomfortable. Abandoning her phone on the coffee table, she stood and moved to put as much space as she could between herself and the words of some homophobic stranger on the internet.

-

It was later in the evening; the sun beginning to set on the London horizon, and Dan found herself standing in front of the mirror again. 

Phil came in, interrupting the tangled web of thoughts in her brain. She hopped up on the counter next to where Dan was standing and pulled her over so that she stood in between Phil’s legs.

“You okay?” She asked, threading her hands through Dan’s hair.

Dan shook her head and burrowed her face into the crease of Phil’s neck. It was warm there and smelled of the raspberry body wash she used. It helped calm the thrum of thoughts running rampant through her mind.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Phil asked gently. She was always so gentle and Dan’s heart filled with fondness.

“Just some twat on tumblr. They said they don’t think we’re queer because we look straight. Like how fucking stupid.”

She could feel Phil nodding. “That is stupid. Looks have no correlation on who you love.”

“I know,” Dan whispered into her shoulder. “Just makes me feel like a fraud or something because I’m not out, and I don’t look like I’m out. Or queer, or whatever.”

“Is there anything that would make you feel like you are? Like, I know it doesn’t matter, but if it’s something that matters to you, I’m sure there is something you could do.”

“I wanna cut my hair,” she blurted out.

She wasn’t sure when she’d made up her mind, or when the thought even entered her subconscious, but it was there, and out in the open now. No taking it back.

Phil paused for a second, before saying “Okay,” and moving Dan back so she could hop down and rifle through the drawers below the counter. She pulled out what she’d been looking for and set an old pair of scissors down in front of Dan.

Dan looked at the scissors and back at Phil. Confusion must have been written all over her features, but Phil shrugged and gave her a hopeful smile.

“What’s stopping you right?” 

Dan shook her head, but still picked them up. “I don’t know how to cut hair. What if it looks stupid?”

“So? Phil replied. “It’s just hair, it grows back. Besides, we could always have Fabrice come by and fix it if you want.”

She considered it for a second. What was the worst that would really happen? Some asshole would say she looked like a dyke, but why was that a bad thing? People already suspected that she was some sort of queer (which she was) and that she was with Phil (which she also was). People wouldn’t say anything they weren’t already.

Taking a deep breath, she grabbed a chunk of hair and snipped it off.

As she watched the long strand of brown locks fall into the sink, she felt like she’d just lifted a giant weight off of her shoulders. She dragged her eyes up to see her reflection and liked how the strand was a little choppy and much shorter.

Dan looked over to Phil, who was wearing a wide grin - eye’s crinkling in the corners like Dan loved. It gave her another wave of braveness, so she grabbed another piece of hair and snipped.

-

By the time she was mostly satisfied with the length, she turned to Phil again and laughed a bit breathlessly. “I did it.”

“You did,” Phil replied. 

She moved forward, and Dan expected a kiss or something of the sort, but Phil took the scissors out of Dan’s hand and started cutting her own hair. 

Phil was a lot less meticulous about it - cutting off random chunks that left the finished product looking a bit like a black birds nest, but Dan loved it.

They put off cleaning up the mess to shower the lingering hair off of them. They took turns washing each other’s hair and might have gotten a bit distracted by the expanse of naked skin on display.

-

When they were finished and had stepped out of the shower, Dan took her place in front of the mirror and assessed herself again. Now that her hair was curly from the shower, it was even shorter, but Dan loved it.

It was choppy and messy and they would _definitely_ need to have it fixed, but she already felt like a new person.

“What do you think?” 

Phil titled her head to the side and stared for second before smiling again. “I like it. Suits you.”

Dan turned back to her reflection and nodded. It needed a little work, but she already loved how she felt. Like she’d been relieved of a giant burden she hadn’t even been fully aware she was carrying around.

“Needs some work, but I think it’ll do for now.”

And so what if she was thinking herself when she said that, because it was true. She wasn’t where she wanted to be, but at least now she felt like she was going in the right direction.

**Author's Note:**

> you can find this fic on [tumblr](https://tobieallison.tumblr.com/post/188198592606/snip)


End file.
